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91
on: October 24, 2024, 02:08:36 am
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Started by Draca - Last post by Rangewind
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I have played in spurts over almost 10 years now. I have been working my way through progression the same order it was released in. Currently in ST and VP. I have not done anything in T11 as of yet.
On the topic of Bane Weapons, I was in T7 when UW was introduced into the server. I was 18 boxing at the time and by the time I had all the armor, spells and accessories. I had bane weapons for my crew to kill Floating Skull and complete the tier. I did not find any problems with needing them to kill a targeted boss.
Expeditions is something a lot of people do not look at. Sure, the end goal of hive shards for UW things is not worth it till you can do the T10 Old Blackburrow but they do offer other things for toons within that tier.
I could see adding HoH token drops to Catacombs of Dranik being an option that might bring people to have more interest in them. The Charm Prism Upgrades that drop and can be purchased count for both v1 or v2 charms. I used to do them daily as it was a easier source for essences then attempting to farm bosses. They can also be turned in for 1 hive shard each so I do not foresee their drop rate being increased.
I do not know if its possible to bring back the T5 expedition (the random boss spawns was a nice alternative from trying to get them to spawn in zone). I know it was disabled due to an exploit but that is about it.
On the toon count, currently I have a 30 box. Tracking who needs how much of what has been interesting but that has also caused me to dig into the macro side of EZ. Creating the macros I have has helped a lot with item tracking and other random things that have come up.
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92
on: October 23, 2024, 10:34:07 pm
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Started by Draca - Last post by Draca
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Lower Tier Content
Lower tier content isn't necessarily ignored by Sarthin and I, and if there glaring issues that have just gone unfixed, we will certainly take a look at what we can do now to fix it. Content itself though, and the time required or difficulty/grindiness of it just isn't something that will change. While some people take this as just being stubborn, it really isn't. EZ Server's history, the legacy of it's creator and those who followed are in those zones. They existed as they are, and were deemed by the developer to be in the state that they wished it to be. Abyss, for example, was designed to be the end of EZ Server's progression, hence the amount of time required to complete. Reducing the time required would diminish the feeling of accomplishment, and the collective understanding that every one who has finished it feels when someone '/ooc About to start Abyss, wish me luck'. EZ Server, while one of the more populated EQEmulator servers, has not been, and will not become a server where the attrition of players who just don't prefer the style of gameplay it provides (and the occasional desire to bash your head on your desk), will dictate changes to content. I realize that sounds harsh, but it is what it is.
Lower Tier Class Balance
This is honestly a short answer, and mostly because trying to explain how difficult it is to balance content is very difficult to do, to people who haven't tried to do it. Lower tier classes cannot be buffed, due to the amount of time to re-balance for their increase in power, and the lack of available testers to provide accurate data, makes it impossible to justify even trying. This is especially true, when the majority of players do not make any attempt to maximize the classes they have, instead relying on the typical Warrior tanking, Paladin healing, most of the rest in auto attack melee. To illustrate this point, I stealth buffed a mid-Tier magician spell about a year ago to nuke as hard as the Idol of the Jailed, and it wasn't discovered for the 6 months it was Live. People just don't try that hard to make the most of what they have, when the next level requires all that min/maxing to happen all over again. I understand why, I didn't either.
I know neither one of these answers is what some people are looking for, but sometimes neither is the content that EZ provides. People will come and go, that's not new, and not something we're actively trying to mitigate through concessionary changes to earlier Tiers.
Hard Mode/Difficulty
Got some notes on where people want to see difficulty.
Hard mode is planned to add several things, at least in T12.
First, and the most obvious is that mobs will hit considerably harder and have more hitpoints.
Secondly, they will cast spells where other regular NPC's would not, or cast more and/or more powerful spells than regular NPC's do.
Third, they will have Hard Mode level loot. This will be a combination of more general loot drops such as essences, spells/spell components etc., but will also drop items that are hard mode versions of the regular armor, but with improved stats.
Beyond that, there are some other ideas that we can play around with, but we'll see how much development time it adds doing some stuff twice.
Other Things
Spells/Effects:
There will be a concerted effort to add some additional useful item effects and class spells, though working with spells which drive everything from item effects to AA's to spells themselves is second to balancing in terms of difficulty. Spells sometimes just refuse to work, or they do not stack as they should, or they work too well and become difficult to balance. That's no one's problem but ours, but it's certainly a topic of thought for us.
Bane Weapons:
Nothing that was planned for T12 specifically, but it seems an interesting possibility for specific fights, though not through a painful, required camp.
Emotes/Interactions:
These are enjoyable from a development standpoint as well, so those will continue.
Box numbers:
There has definitely been an inflation in the amount of boxed characters that people are playing. Some of it is the desire to kill faster, some is more recent efforts by certain players to develop rules abiding macros that make maximizing those groups much simpler. There is no need for massive groups in any zone, and while breaking into Kael is easier with 42 characters, that's also 30 more mouths to feed than a group of 12. Yes, it's more of a struggle with less characters, but it's impossible to finish content, it's just a question of whether you like the challenge of less characters who don't require nearly as many overall kills/bosses, or would rather have the security of numbers.
Along these lines, it is increasingly likely that T12 will limit the number of characters allowed in the zone at once. No final decision on what the number would be.
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93
on: October 21, 2024, 01:11:33 pm
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Started by Draca - Last post by orkiho
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• Assuming current Kael difficulty as a baseline, would you like to see new content: Harder (should be a struggle to break in) With Hard Mode to make it interesting later in the tier when its just grinding. • Do you find the background lore, NPC emotes, quest background stories etc. engaging or entertaining, or don't really care much either way? I enjoy the lore/emotes/etc at the beginning. But seeing the same stuff over and over as we grind gets...ehh. • Is there any mechanic that we've used previously that you would, or would not like to see repeated? Having all the same mob types that do the same spells/ae at the same % is a bit boring. • Feelings on bane weapons? Wouldn't want chars to be entirely useless until they get the bane. At this point most have ultimate weapons...if they are not ultimate and we have to use banes doesn't make sense to me. Bane Augs maybe? But, if we have to switch weapons/augs around on all our chars for QoL it needs to be mq accessible. • Aside from the content, what would you like to see 'fixed' as part of this Tier? Example I've heard: Item effects are not very useful/being re-used. But it's open ended, whatever you'd like to see done better in some way, or fixed. Pets/Pet Weapons have been a complaint for awhile. If strike augs are going to keep getting updates, have weapons for all the classes that could use them. Kael doesn't have any firestrike or icestrike class options. 2h classes ultimate proc aug options suck. At some point in the tier is becomes no longer about survivability or tactics it turns into how to do more dps, Hard mode may help with this but if there was something else to shake things up, randomness, changes to the zone over time? As its mostly about just mass killing, a quest that rewards you for a very large amount of mobs killed...i would be interested to know how many mobs each tier I've killed progressing through, maybe after X mobs you get...something. Trophy that ranks up each time you complete the quest?...i would be fine with it having no use for the tier or no utility just flavor like the mago t-shirt. Or i'm not sure if is possible in the code to check for the existing of the trophy to change the scripting...after X kills they just emote "sigh...you again?" then and xx kills its "just leave me alone already" and so on to have fun with it. • Since this post will probably get people's attention, is there anything currently broken or janky that you feel needs to be addressed? (completely separate from the Tier). Still waiting on my reward  |
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94
on: October 21, 2024, 08:03:01 am
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Started by Raygan - Last post by Raygan
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Thank the Lord! I have a church function up in the North Georgia Mountains this weekend coming up and was worried I was going to miss the event!
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95
on: October 20, 2024, 04:55:10 pm
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Started by Hunter - Last post by zefirus
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Edit: Oh yeah, asking retarded questions will get you #revoked from ooc and tells.
Enjoy!
Hunter
Ahh the good old days |
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96
on: October 20, 2024, 07:07:47 am
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Started by Draca - Last post by blackthantos
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Being relatively new to the server and its particular mechanics and content, I am not really in a position to comment about the higher level tiers as I have not reached them yet, I will however comment on some of the lower tier activities I have done.
1) I will agree with some of the comments listed previously that casters do seem to be in need of a "buff" to bring them somewhat in line with the melee classes, as a person who primarily plays casters in MMO's in general, I would love to be able to "main" one of my casters, which I sadly cannot do as things are currently. I have heard that they do improve in later tiers, but I would ask why is there that delay?
2) FG/CG: I can see the need to do these on one character if you so wish to do so the "old fashioned" way but when you are looking to do them for a party its a pain to put it mildly, sadly, Misty Thicket appears to be extremely buggy to put it mildly, in regard to this I am unclear if that is something that is awry with the zone itself, or if it is something that is occurring on client side (aka if i have a corrupted file somewhere). I am going to throw out a suggestion, since FG/CG appear to be nostalgia runs for the most part, why not add a vendor that sells the items needed to proceed with the quest, which would be another option, this would allow those who maybe are seeking another way to complete these two quest lines for an entire party another way to do so. This would eliminate some time that is spent running through multiple chars working to get these two requirements completed, I have seen this done on well an AC server, and it doesnt detract from the experience but rather adds another option for players to progress. A further thing to consider this is no different really then those who have the option to purchase a completion flag from the ez credit vendor, except it would be open to all which would also help especially as donations are no longer accepted at this time.
3)Going to add to the LDON statement here, I would like to see that as well (in regard to what Acaelis mentioned), I would go so far as to suggest that the bosses also drop more then one page at a time, this would also cut down in the length of time players spend doing these tasks.
I guess really in the end a decision needs to be made if the server wants to be welcoming to newer players, and by this I mean in regard to shortening the time it takes (and effort and frustration) to get through the the earlier tiers I personally can say there have been a few times that I have been frustrated with either the drop rates (qvic etc) or some of the more "tedious" elements of progression to the point where I needed to step away from playing for a bit, and I am typically more patient then most gamers. In closing I would agree with the opinion that the acceleration for tiers 1-7 could do with some tweaking as that would be one most players would get frustrated and be more prone to lose interest and quit.
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97
on: October 19, 2024, 10:47:17 pm
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Started by Raygan - Last post by Draca
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Do we have dates of when the Halloween event will be this year? I have something coming up that I want to go to but I want to make sure it doesn't interfere with an event.
Halloween will likely start on Halloween, October 31st, and run through Nov. 6th/7th. |
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98
on: October 19, 2024, 10:46:16 pm
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Started by Draca - Last post by Draca
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I don't want to respond point by point yet. Still watching what's coming through.
I will offer what insights I have in the next couple days.
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99
on: October 19, 2024, 08:03:58 am
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Started by Draca - Last post by Fecs
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I think baseline difficulty should probably be in the neighborhood of halfway between current kael and original kael.
I like 'hardmode' making it significantly harder.
I think bane weapons are a terrible idea, I've always hated bane weapons in EQ. Especially on a box server as others mentioned.
I hope the constant small knockback mechanic is not reused, especially in a cramped zone like VT.
I would much prefer "run in" adds or pops rather than instant appear/aggro.
I enjoyed the "stop fighting and do a thing" mechanics, but not if that thing is something a single random character in your box group has to do (emote or click stuff ect)
Jank would be stacking of effects as always within eq.
I think a stat squish is needed, I wish it was as easy as cutting everything down a few orders of magnitude, but I don't know how that would actually work in practice.
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100
on: October 17, 2024, 05:49:10 pm
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Started by Draca - Last post by Linamas
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I've sat on this for a couple of days, as I'm not entirely sure that I'm qualified to respond. I'm not in T11 yet. I'm not even in T7 yet (almost!). However, you do ask about things on the server that could be addressed. I'm sure you've heard everything across the spectrum, and I wasn't going to respond at all. Then this morning a comment was made in Discord about old content "never being more trivial" in light of current knowledge of the game and server and the availability of end game buffs. As a new-ish player to this server, who has committed a not so trivial amount of time to "only" be T6, I almost walked away from EZ. And that's coming from someone who has enjoyed the server and what it has had to offer. The previous content is not trivial, nor is it not without its faults.
Wings offers a great advantage when it's available. Even with that advantage, T3/T4 you're stuck waiting on token drops and chance drops for characters to gear up and move forward. I don't have the creative brain to suggest a solution, but at some point there's a tipping point where you've "finished" the content and it's punitive to farm the tokens and then have to kill the same NPC 100+ times to get one, singular drop. That's AFTER you've geared 11 other characters fully, with (I wasn't counting) how many other kills along the way. While it's effective at "slowing down" the (apparently trivial) progression through the game, it's also somewhat...unvaried and uninspired.
You've heard plenty on T5. I actually enjoyed T5 and found it a refreshing change in pace from the tedium of T3/T4. It's by far a more enjoyable Tier than T6. However, it leads me to the next point - box/bot management. EZ Server promotes itself as a "Solo boxing server." The wiki says "12 and beyond," but we all know that people are easily running 18. Mage group CoTH is broken, making moving characters around in large zones extremely tedious. For the most part, MQ handles this fairly easily. Occasionally you'll end up with a zone that has broken navmeshes, like Illsalin/Abyss, where you can easily spend several months playing. Without a better bot management system, you're stuck tabbing across 12+ screens trying to move characters "up" over a ledge to get them in line with your primary driver. In game there does exist a mechanic to do this, but it's locked behind a paywall that is reserved for a select few that have been with the server for a period of time, or those who happen to catch a donation window that appears as elusive as the random named(s) in T5. I do not fault bringing down the donation system. However, with group CoTH broken, and no other way at lower tiers to solve this...it's a simple QoL fix that could be adjusted.
Looking forward, I agree with what's previously been said - bane weapons as a whole become a nuisance for a boxing server. Having to keep track of 12+ characters, who has what equipped for which NPC "type" and then switching back, swapping out epic augs along the way, we'd spend more time managing equipment than we would playing the content. Perhaps that's the goal, but if so...it seems less engaging than what I've experienced so far!
I always find the comments/emotes/NPC interactions to be entertaining. Please continue them. As a Type A personality, I know that I could never come up with that level of engagement, so it's fun to see (even the names, like the bosses in T5, were amusing to me). While I don't catch the "lore" behind each tier that I've gone through, I do randomly see the text and get a chuckle the break up the monotony.
Sorry for the gripes - I meant this more as an encouragement that the content itself as presented IS in fact fun and engaging. Each tier has presented new and unique opportunities. Always fun to see some new stuff, and play along with new people.
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